NYCC: Marvel Editor-in

NEWS
NYCC: MARVEL EDITOR-IN-CHIEF STEPHEN WACKER TALKS TO RETAILERS
On Sharpening Focus, Variant Covers, and His Rebellious Retailer Days
Posted by Brigid Alverson on October 16, 2026 @ 8:03 am CT

Stephen Wacker, Marvel’s recently appointed Editor in Chief (see “New EiC at Marvel”), took the podium at Retailer Day at New York Comic Con to talk about what retailers and their customers can expect from the new management.

He started with a provocative question: “Does Marvel publish too many comics?”

“If we’re launching everything at once and telling you it’s all essential, what are you supposed to do with that?” he said. “How do you know which book we’re really going to get behind, and how are we supposed to give each book the attention it needs to succeed? So before we put another book on the schedule, I want us asking some questions: Are we giving every comic we publish a reason to exist? Who’s going to want this? What’s the creative team excited about? What can we tell you that will help you sell it? If we don’t have good answers to those questions, we need to keep working on the book. What that might mean is fewer books. It might mean giving a book more time to succeed. I think what we’ve come to realize quickly is that the business has evolved, and we should not be scared of evolving along with it. I don’t want Marvel to succeed simply by taking up more shelf space in your store. I want us to succeed by making books that matter in your store.”

Wacker cited Marvel’s new Midnight universe, which launched that morning, as an example. “Three books, one day, with nothing else from us. That sent a message,” he said. “Cloaked covers, so the book itself was a reveal. Making sure that you could read issue one before FOC, and working to make sure issue two didn’t FOC until issue one was on sale.”

Ultimately, he said, “I’d rather you sell out of ten books than sit on 30.”

Variant Covers: Making Them Make Sense
With regard to variant covers, Wacker said, “I have a bias here. I love variant covers. Readers like them. You seem to like them, and it gives us a chance to put some incredible artists on those covers, including people who might not get to work at Marvel otherwise.” On the other hand, variant covers can be overused and can cause confusion among readers. A good main cover is memorable in its own right, he said, citing Denys Cowan’s Hardware #1. “I was at the Taco Bell in 1993 reading that comic and was just blown away that the cover just drew me in so strongly,” he said. “Every Marvel cover needs to do that, and I don’t want it getting lost in a lineup of 20 other covers.”

Indeed, Marvel representatives had discussed variant covers at length in their presentation earlier in the day. Marvel now labels its variant covers A, B, C, and so on, as is standard in much of the rest of the industry. Going forward, not only will variant covers be labeled with letters, but the artist’s name will be on the cover, near the bar code. Some series will have recurring themes for the variants, as with Marvel’s Midnight line, where A is the main cover, B is “Midnight Bloodbath,” blood-soaked covers, C covers feature reimagined Marvel characters that fit the Midnight theme, D covers pay homage to classic horror images, and E covers are prestige painted images of the Midnight universe. The upcoming Star Wars/Marvel crossover Hope Assembles will have a similar themed variant scheme (see “Preview: ‘Star Wars | Marvel: Hope Assembles’ #1 Variant Covers and Interior Art”).

‘Sticking It to Marvel’ as a Retailer
Wacker started his comics career in retail, first at Comics and More in his native St. Louis, MO, and then at Golden Apple Comics in Los Angeles. At Golden Apple, Wacker recalls, he and the staff rebelled when Marvel tried to cut in on their business: In 1994, when Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross’s Marvels came out, retailers couldn’t get enough issues to satisfy the demand. “It was flying off the shelves,” he said, “and somewhere in there, they put in the Marvel comics that week a flyer called Marvel Mart that was telling people how to order the issues directly from Marvel.” Golden Apple owner Bill Liebowitz and his wife Sharon worked with the staff to remove the flyers. “I remember Bill fuming because he could not order the books, but there they were going direct to consumer,” Wacker said “so we before we put all the books out that week, Bill, Sharon, along with a bunch of other staffers, we sat there and proudly ripped that Marvel Mart out of every single copy. We were very proud of this endeavor. We piled it all up, and Bill wrote the angriest of Don Draper letters to Marvel. So my earliest Marvel memory is sticking it to Marvel. Now I’m on the other side and sticking it to them in other ways, probably, but what I’ve brought to this job in the past eight weeks is trying to remember what made us rip those flyers out in the first place.”

Wacker acknowledged the challenges of being a retailer: “You order books three months out with no returns on a guess from catalogs that used to be the size of the Springfield, Illinois, phone book, and of course now it’s not one catalog anymore. It’s three or four from three or four different distributors, each with its own cutoff, its own FOC, its own invoice, its own shipping details, and its own way of telling you a book is late.” And when the comics arrive, it’s the retailer who connects them with the readers. “A good retailer, a good back issue manager, a good cashier can do more for a book than an entire marketing campaign. We make the thing, but you make the reader. I’ve been on both sides of the counter, and I know which one is harder.”

Comics Lead, Movies Follow
The Marvel Cinematic Universe is, Wacker said, “without a doubt the biggest, most impressive <a href="https://comicvibe.com/indian-idol-legends-return-premieres-october-17-on-sony-entertainment-television-and-sony-liv/” title=”Indian Idol Legends Return premieres October 17 on Sony Entertainment Television and Sony LIV”>entertainment franchise on the planet,” but he rejected the notion that the comics should be tightly bound to what happens on the screen. That’s an attitude shared by Marvel Studios President and Chief Creative Officer Kevin Feige, Wacker said. “One of the things that Kevin made clear at our very first conversation is that our job is not to follow the movies,” he said. “Our job is to make great Marvel comics, to let the creators take a chance, let a character go somewhere we haven’t seen before. We all want the next game-changing idea to start on the comics page.”

Feige had attended Marvel’s creative summit the day before. “It was eye-opening to watch him sit in the room, talk with our writers, with our artists, with our editors, and get them to understand that our job is to be 15 years ahead of him,” Wacker said. “Marvel comics should be the creative engine. We clearly are better when we are leading and not following. And the best thing we can give the other parts of Marvel and you and our audience is something they never saw coming. That’s what you’re going to be seeing going forward.”

Bringing In New Faces
Wacker also had a message for creators. “We can’t expect a creator to be grateful simply because we let them write Spider-Man,” he said. “We need to make sure that we are paying them on time. We need to back them up when things get loud and listen to what they want to do with the book and help them try to make it better rather than stopping them cold at every turn. I recognize that doing creative work here is not for everybody, but I believe strongly that if you dig hard enough, every writer or artist has a Marvel story in them somewhere, and I want us to be welcoming to them. Play in our sandbox for a year, go back and do your own thing, come back when you got another one. Even a soloist likes to play in a band once in a while.”

That means there will be some new faces on the creative teams, he said. “You’re going to see names on Marvel books next year and beyond that haven’t been on Marvel in a long time, and some that have never been on Marvel at all,” Wacker said. “I do not believe in a house style, and I think to compete in 2026, our tastes need to be broad, not thin. The previous Editor in Chief brought a metric ton of new talent into this company, and I want to continue that that work. I’ve wanted to work with some of these people you’re going to see for years. I’m looking forward to seeing your faces when you see them on the covers and on the interiors of our comic books.”

A Pledge to Retailers
He concluded with a pledge to retailers. “When we ask you to order a book, we can tell you who we think will buy it and why,” he said. “We tell you what you need to know before FOC while you can still do something about it, and when we screw up, you hear it from us….  If you’re looking at your order form and thinking we’re falling short, I want to hear it. That’s how we’re going to get better. I want us making comics that people just can’t wait to read, and I want you to have what you need to sell them.”

“There’s a kid who’s dreaming about coming to this show tomorrow,” he said, “who’s going to fall into a comic that will contain a moment of storytelling that will tattoo on their brain and that they will remember for the rest of their lives, just like me. I’d like it to be one of ours, and I’d like them to come back to you for more of where that came from. But I’m happy from wherever it comes. But most importantly, I want them getting excited about coming to a comic store once this show ends.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Brigid Alverson
Contributing Editor. Alverson has been writing about comics since she launched MangaBlog in 2005. She wrote the Comics A.M. column for Robot 6 (now part of CBR), and currently edits the Good Comics for Kids blog at School Library Journal. In her earlier life, she had roles at magazine and book publishers.
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